on bbc news, the latest from new york and around the world. business business today. live from new york york at the opening bell. this is is business today. markets look to to build on fresh record highs as as investors buy into hopes of an an iran peace deal amid a resilient resilient us economy. shock to the the system could the iran war snuff snuff out a uk economic recovery recovery amid green shoots in the the first two months of the year, year, plus hitting the wrong notes, notes, a us jury rules live nation, nation, the owner of ticketmaster, ticketmaster, runs a harmful monopoly monopoly and overcharges fans. welcome

welcome to business today live from from new york. i'm samira hussain hussain now we start here on wall wall street where investors are seemingly seemingly looking to build on record record highs amid growing optimism optimism that the worst of the middle middle east conflict may be in the the rear-view mirror, bolstered by by strong corporate earnings from from big banks and further signs signs of the resilience of the us us economy, markets have pretty much much wiped away all of the losses losses seen since the iran war began. began. but with rising dire warnings warnings of a wider global economic economic impact and little material material change on the ground, are are investors getting ahead of themselves. themselves. victoria fernandez is is chief market strategist at crossmark crossmark global investments. victoria victoria despite the war, us stock stock markets are hitting record record highs. what gives? hi, victoria,

victoria, can you hear me? oh, i'm i'm afraid we've lost her right now. now. so let's move on to our next next story. hopefully we can get get her back and we're going to go go to washington, where the spring spring meetings of the imf and world world bank continue. now the impact impact on asia from the energy shock shock from the iran war has been been in focus today. the region is is particularly vulnerable due to to its heavy reliance on oil supplies supplies from the gulf. now the imf imf is warning of higher inflation inflation and weaker growth. and and as she has been all week, our our very own michelle fleury is live live in washington for the latest. latest. michelle. thanks, amira. amira. yeah. all this week you and and i have been talking about the the imf, which in many ways is sort sort of the global financial watchdog watchdog for the world and the kind kind of gloomy forecasts that they've

they've been talking about as a result result of this energy shock. everything everything right now is about that. that. we haven't talked much, though, though, about the world bank. this this is, after all, the imf and the the world bank spring meetings. they they are very much focused on development development and of course the needs needs are pretty great as a result result of this conflict, many of of the sort of world's developing developing countries will be hit hit amongst the hardest as a result result of higher oil prices, higher higher fertiliser prices and the the knock-on effect. my colleague colleague the bbc's faisal islam islam has been speaking to the world world bank president ajay banga about about the development needs of the the world's poorest countries. the the crisis in the middle east clearly clearly impacts a lot of my developing developing world. you know, we deal deal with the developing world. it it has an asymmetric impact on them. them. depending on whether you're you're a net oil importer or exporter exporter and what kind of storage storage capacity and what kind of of fiscal headroom you had. but the the reality is what you don't have have clarity on is both the duration

duration as well as the impact on on energy infrastructure. so until until you get that clarity, it's it's kind of difficult to know how how difficult this could be or not. not. what we are trying to do is is to say that you can't afford to to wait for that. it could be that that you get this piece to stick stick and the hormuz strait opens opens up because there's so much much work going on behind the scenes scenes on that. if that does, it it will still take a few months for for the supply system to stabilise. stabilise. so what we're trying to to do is prepare three packages of of help for our clients and then then use them depending on how deep deep this goes and how much damage damage there is. it feels like when. when. you put it together, the cost cost of energy, the physical supply supply and potentially food helium, helium, naphtha it feels like a perfect perfect storm. well, so if you look look at helium and sulphur and fertiliser, fertiliser, those are currently constrained. constrained. but i'd caution you you about assuming that the impact impact on food is as immediate as as the impact on oil and gas or on on sulphur or helium. the reason

reason is the fertiliser stocks in in the developed world exist and and this is their planting cycle cycle right now. the real problem problem will be if fertiliser is is not available three months from from today and we reach the planting planting season of the developing developing world of the non-northern non-northern countries, then we start start getting into a difficult cycle cycle on food availability. and so so this is the huge challenge for for many countries. it's not just just the immediate impact of the the energy shock and the problems problems that is causing in countries countries like pakistan where they're they're talking about sort of energy energy power cuts for two hours a a day to try and conserve. we're we're also talking about the knock-on knock-on effect about the things things like fertiliser and the impact impact that will have on, on food food prices. as you just heard there, there, we're talking about the knock-on knock-on effect on inputs that go go into many industrial goods. and and that is why everyone is watching watching what happens with the strait strait of hormuz, because so much much of their economic fate depends depends on what happens in that small

small shipping lane. michel, thank thank you so much. michelle fleury fleury there for us in washington. washington. well, now we can go back back to talking about us financial financial markets with victoria fernandez. fernandez. and she is chief market market strategist at crossmark global global investments. so the same question question stands despite the war, war, we see that us stock markets markets are hitting record highs. highs. and i'm wondering why that that is. you know, samir, you use use the word resilient at the top top of the show. and i think that's that's exactly what we're seeing seeing in us markets. they're actually actually looking through the elements elements of the iraq war and they're they're saying, let's go back to to where we were before this all all started, before the end of february. february. and they're saying we have have a decent labour market. there's there's some tailwinds here for this this market. we've got fiscal stimulus stimulus in the tune of tax rebates rebates and things for the american american consumer. we have deregulation deregulation that's coming through through for a lot of different industries.

industries. so there's these tailwinds tailwinds that are here for the economy economy and it's earnings season. season. and the bank started off off pretty strong. and we've gotten gotten some good tech earnings as as well. so these are all things things that i think investors say. say. yes we know there's concerns concerns in the middle east. but but we think that's going to be resolved. resolved. so we're going to just just bypass that and look at the the other elements of this market. market. victoria that was just a a great information. but unfortunately unfortunately we're going to have have to leave it there for now. thanks thanks so much for your time. now now from the us economy, we're moving moving to the uk where the governor governor of the bank of england has has played down fears that interest interest rates may have to rise sharply sharply because of the war. now it it comes after the imf slashed the the uk's growth forecast for this this year and next, and warned it it would be the hardest hit among among developed economies. but in in some more positive news for the the uk's prospects, the latest figures figures showed the uk economy grew

grew in february by 0.5%, which is is better than expected but is of of course before the middle east east war began. well for more. joining joining me now is jackie bowie, managing managing director at chatham financial financial in london. what are the the drivers of this increase in growth growth for the uk? well, it was really really driven by the services part part of the economy, which in the the uk is the biggest proportion proportion of that gdp number. so so yeah, much stronger growth than than the consensus forecasts. there there was also kind of a decent outcome outcome in manufacturing and a bounce bounce back in, in some of the construction construction numbers. i think the the challenge is that some of these these numbers already are looking looking a little bit weaker as we we look forward. so like you say, say, it's a very much rear-view mirror. mirror. these are numbers that were were put that we've reported prior prior to the iraq war, and we're we're now sitting in a very different different economic scenario than than we were when these numbers would

would have been recorded for the the economy. right. of course, this this is all, you know, backwards backwards looking information all all before the war has started. we we are seeing that look, there are are some really dire warnings about about the uk economy going forward forward because of the war. what what are you looking for? yeah. well well the you know, going back to to the imf report and you know, some some of the other commentary this this morning, the reason the uk is is more badly hit than maybe some some of the other g7 really comes comes down to the energy shock impacting impacting the uk much more. we are are at a net energy importer so we we have no we can't sustain our own own energy provision. and when you you have the shock that we've had had through the oil price and the the other commodities markets, that's that's going to feed much more through through to the uk economy in that that mechanism of, you know, energy energy prices for households, for for businesses and cost of fuel at at the pump. and that's really the the biggest worry that those prices prices will start to transfer through.

through. and the uk has no buffer buffer to protect itself because because we have to import all of of our energy. well, and just very, very, very briefly, is there anything anything that could be considered considered a bright spot? it's really really difficult to see any bright bright spots. i suppose one thing thing that we could highlight is is when we came into 2026, there there was an expectation that the the bank of england would cut interest interest rates and that was all priced priced in when the war kicked off. off. what we then seen, of course, course, is that the expectation for for the interest rate market is that that interest rates would increase. increase. now that is still priced priced in, but it's tapered off just just a little. so maybe some of the the kind of real worst case scenarios scenarios seem to be being diluted. diluted. big day on the 30th of april, april, which is the next bank of of england meeting. that's also when when they will release their full full monetary policy report, and and we'll get a real insight into into what their reaction is. jackie

jackie bowie, thank you so much for for your time. we're going to have have to leave it there. now. meanwhile, meanwhile, china's economy is so so far shrugging off the effects effects of the war in iran. now, now, official figures out today show show china's economy grew 5% in the the first three months of the year year compared with the same time time last year. that was better than than expected and a jump on the 4.5% 4.5% growth in the final quarter quarter of 2025. now to the music music industry, where big changes changes could be on the way after after a court in new york found the the concert giant live nation and and its ticketmaster subsidiary illegally illegally monopolised the selling selling of tickets for concerts. concerts. the civil case was originally originally brought by the federal federal government under president president biden, but was taken on on by 33 individual us states after after the trump administration settled settled with the company. now, live live nation have said it will appeal appeal the verdict. stephen parker

parker is from the national independent independent venue association in in the us and is calling for the the company to be broken up. ultimately, ultimately, a break-up is one of of the most effective things that that the government can do to make make sure that live nation's monopoly, monopoly, as we know from the trial, trial, can't snuff out competition competition like independent venues venues and can't abuse fans like like they have and like the court court ruled that they did. we think think live nation and ticketmaster ticketmaster should have to structurally structurally separate. but we also also think that live nation's artists artists management gives them competitive competitive advantages that are unfair unfair and potentially illegal. based based on what we found out. and ultimately, ultimately, we also think that live live nation's leverage over the venues, venues, which was talked about by by many witnesses and by the government government throughout this case that that needs to be addressed as well. well. live nation should not be able able to book 100% of national tours tours any more. we believe that that that should be capped and ultimately ultimately that is their leverage leverage that led to the monopolisation monopolisation verdict that we saw

saw from jurors. well, that is all all that we have for business news. news. please stay tuned with more more coming

find a good place for it. when the the big names talk, they talk to to us. you're watching bbc news in in the last few hours. a report from from the inquiry into the covid pandemic pandemic has said the rollout of of vaccines may have saved the lives lives of almost 500,000 people. it it says the way the jabs were developed developed and deployed so quickly quickly was an extraordinary feat, feat, but also says action is needed needed to restore trust in communities communities which so saw a lower lower uptake of the vaccine. jim jim reed has more. march 20th 21 21 in 1 single day, almost a million million people were given their covid covid vaccine. this is just a relief relief to be having this vaccine. vaccine. it's just setting us free. free. i think it's a good idea to to try and get back to normal. i i think it will make people feel feel safe.